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Archive for October, 2004

last night was the long-awaited organ/controller.controller/gentleman reg show at the grad club that they’ve been advertising since mid-september. i picked up my advanced tickets earlier in the week based on the knowledge that their toronto show sold out quite fast, but when we arrived at 10:15, we were faced with a totally empty room, and gentleman reg was already on stage. we were a bit confused, until we went to the bar to get drinks and were asked to go to the other room while the band finished their sound check. i’ve never had that happen before. so, we waited a bit, and then grad club virginia came in and gave us the scoop: apparently one of the bands was 3 hours late, so they herded the entire crowd upstairs to allow room to lug their equipment through. this also meant that, by the time the gentleman reg band started to REALLY play, it was crazy packed – apparently the show was sold out.

i have no proof of this, but i have a feeling that there was a height requirement imposed on the advanced tickets. i have no other explanation for how freakishly tall the crowd seemed to be. i’m used to being able to at least see a fraction of the stage at shows, but for the most part i found myself behind 6’5+ behemoths all night. crazy.

gentleman reg’s band went on first, and i’m not exactly sure how he got on the bill. his set was a bit inconsistent, but overall i quite liked his songs – he reminded me of a somewhat less talented carl newman (was it the lisp? the wide variations in vocal pitch? his looks? yes, i know, carl’s a redhead, but still…) i much preferred his up-tempo songs, a couple of which felt like they lifted the lead guitar straight from an old plumtree track, and one that borrowed the riff from cornershop’s brimful of asha. all in all, catchy. i’m not sure what was up with his on again/off again faux british accent either, but i thought it was pretty funny.

controller.controller were up second, and they were who i was most excited to see. they opened for the dears last year and i quite enjoyed their post-punk dancerock set, even though it was in the vacuous wasteland that is the elixir. last night’s set was more intense – bathed in red light, with a crowd that was crazy into it, motoring through an hour of catchy and danceable (although, fuck, don’t dance madly in a super packed grad club!) !!!-esque tracks. i have no clue what the vocalist was singing about, but i don’t really care – it was all about the rhythm section for me. in spite of the fact that i could only see for a fraction of the time, i liked their set enough to want to see them again when they return in a month.

unfortunately, because everything started so late, we had to ditch before the organ took the stage. i’ve heard mixed reviews about their live show (confirmed last night by someone who left after two songs) so i’m not too upset. up next: memphis, followed by sondre lerche. woo.

from the iron horse saloon’s website:October 29, 2004 Vince Neil of MOTLEY CRUE – Get your tickets now… while there are still some left!!! You will not want to miss this show. Special guests: Circuit & Arayas/Eyes. You can purchase tickets in person here at the Ironhorse or over the phone at (613)544-9900. Or keep it locked to the Rock for your chance to win your way in.

so, what’s up with the guy who makes ads for queen’s pubs for the journal? you may recall the ad for the qp a couple weeks ago that may or may not have been written by the 999th monkey, and he was at it again today:

by my count there are only 12 words in that ad (and that’s being VERY generous, considering “29”, “3pm”, etc. as being words) and NO ONE caught the obvious typo? come on.

ok, i wrote that sentence about 5 minutes ago, and i randomly happened to look over at my cable modem, and i discovered that my “service” light was off. so, i guess i may have been a bit premature in my declaration.

anyway, i had a service call on saturday at 8 am (zzzzz) that was pretty ridiculous. the guy tested my modem (it passed – as i knew it would), and then tested my coax. he found that my levels were basically low enough that a slight breeze would knock me offline, and then went on a rant about how the signal strength was amazing up on the roof, but it’s queen’s fault that they’re never allowed to fix the lines that actually lead into everyone’s apartments, blahblahblah. so, he shrugged his shoulders and told me he’d go look up on the roof but he was sure that he wouldn’t find anything up there. so, i asked what i should do about this. he suggested that i move. no joke. when he left he told me he’d only come back down if he found a problem upstairs, but not to count on it, so i went back to bed.

about 20 minutes later he woke me up again with a knock on my door. he DID find something – apparently a “fix” he put in place last weekend was wreaking havoc on my service, and likely that of everyone else in my building (which, incidentally, begs the question – why did tech support tell me that everyone else’s service was great when i asked?) he told me that he’d fixed his fix, and things should be fine from now on. there is more work to be done on monday to make things more stable, but i guess i’ll believe that when i see it.

last tuesday, i cashed in on a birthday present courtesy of anne, and got to see cake for the 2nd time at massey hall (this time in the front row!) before i get started, it’s interesting to me that oftentimes when i mention that i like cake or that i’m going to see them, people often react with a “really??” i guess i’m not entirely sure where cake fits into the musical landscape – they’re certainly not indie, and their fanbase of mostly 30+ers was well suited to the sit-down venue – but they’re so good! i blame steve for getting me hooked on them, and i have no idea how many hours we listened to them in our old office.

it took some searching to figure out who the openers were to be – it wasn’t listed on the tickets, cake’s website or massey hall’s site – and now i know why. i eventually figured out that an all-female rap group called northern state were touring with cake, and i thought that was an odd mix at the time. because i knew nothing about them, i dug up their 0.8/10 review on pitchfork, which, incidentally, was deserved. they’re three girls who reminded me of an all-vanilla version of vanilla, jade and ivory, who performed the “graduation rap” in ghost world, with long island accents and zero talent. their band looked, for the most part, either terrified (i.e. the drummer who was so stiff he may as well have been an automaton with a large fro) or miserable to be there (i.e. the rest of the band, minus the bassist). their songs really did hit home though, with topics ranging from body image to virginity (ha!) to vegetarianism and other fascinating topics that really should be covered by more hiphop artists. oh, and one of them was wearing a beta band t-shirt (i’m positive she’s never heard the beta band in her life), and another was wearing a…northern state t-shirt. awesome. it really was telling that cake made no mention of them during their set (even the worst bands usually get a token “thanks” from the headliners), so after the show i confirmed that yes, northern state are also signed to sony, just like cake. i wonder whose idea THAT pairing was…

anyway, cake made it all okay. they put on a fantastic live show (even though they had no set list) and covered most of my favourites – comfort eagle, frank sinatra, sheep go to heaven, stickshifts and safety belts, love you madly, carbon monoxide, no phone, wheels, never there, etc. etc….and they finished off their encore with i will survive. another highlight was, without question, the audience participation in nugget – repeated choruses of “shut the fuck up” were a nice touch. john mccrea also glared at me and mocked my crossed armed pose during one song when i wasn’t participating enough for his liking – clearly the front row is the place to be. they played for an hour and a half and we went home happy at around 11. it certainly wasn’t my typical indie show, but it’s nice to mix things up sometimes.

oh, and for the record, i regret not yelling out “it’s my birthday – gimme some cake!”, as anne suggested, either during northern state or before cake hit the stage. alas.

so, for a completechangeofpace, my cogeco has been acting up a whole lot over the last few days. i decided to give them a call yet again (i think that’s 4 calls since last friday, if you’re keeping score at home – the last one was my favourite, involving the guy telling me my modem was online when it clearly wasn’t) mainly because i’m a glutton for punishment. tonight’s first level technician tried to tell me repeatedly that the problem HAD to be my modem. i was quite insistent that it probably WASN’T (“can you give me a reason that my connectivity has died the last 3 nights at 8:30 if it’s my modem? no? i didn’t think so…”) he was very reluctant to pass me onto 2nd level (“but sir, 2nd level confirms that it has to be a problem with your modem…” “are you telling me i can’t talk to 2nd level?”) anyway, my 2nd level tech told me that i had a problem with my line…nothing to do with my modem, as predicted. in summary, chumptastic may be hiccuppy during prime time for the next few nights until i can get a service visit.

in other news, moneen and some other bands are playing at smijies tomorrow night. that’s right. smijies. the bar where every beer comes with a free bar fight. poor moneen.

the description (not to mention the title) is so well written, i can only imagine what the actual manuscript will be like. i especially enjoy the photo of some typed pages that apparently prove he’s written something. i guess a sample of text would’ve been too much to ask for.

how exciting! according to today’s queen’s journal, run chico run are playing a show with the radical dudez on october 14th. for an explanation of why this is a dream come true for me, you’ll have to read what i’ve written about these bands previously – here and here.